Slovak TV Bedtime Stories of the 1990s 2 (rerun)

Puppet Theatre

03.07.2016

10:00

Duration49:10

If we consider the 1980s as “the golden era” of Slovak and Czechoslovak TV bedtime stories for children, the following decade brought only complications for original children’s TV animation. After the revolution of 1989 the manner of investment as well as the authors’ production environment changed dramatically. Formerly financed by the state via Slovenská Filmová Tvorba (a national film production company) and Slovenská televízia (Slovak Television), filmmaking lost funding as well as the technical facilities of Koliba TV Studios, which fell victim to privatization and was left to decay during the 1990s’ Mečiar government. Slovak Television remained the only party interested in animation. Many orders for TV bedtime stories were still placed in the 1990s despite the difficulties, and former employees of Kreslená tvorba (“cartoon production”) started to found their own production studios. Yet most proved unable to adapt to the new capitalist market, and were forced to close down when orders from Slovak Television dried up. The number of orders gradually decreased until the millennium, when the production of animated content for children stopped almost completely. The original production of TV bedtime stories from this era was considerably poorer compared to its former state of glory, although content-wise it could still compete with children`s TV programs from abroad. This selection contains the best children`s animation broadcast in the 1990s, and consequently closes one of the chapters of TV bedtime story tradition that raised several generations.